Secret sauce to a 2-HR game? For this D-backs prospect, it’s to bunt

JD Dix is perennially on the hunt to reach base. Work the count, get plunked, spray the ball all over the field, or even, drop down a bunt. Which is how he discovered a way to unlock some home run pop.

Dix recorded the first two-homer game of his career April 16 for Single-A Visalia. On the first pitch of his first at-bat, he considered squaring around to bunt. Two roundtrippers followed. Fast-forward to Friday night and the D-backs' No. 6 prospect did try to get a bunt down, but once again homered twice during the Rawhide's 13-6 win over Stockton at Valley Strong Ballpark.

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Already with a walk and single to his ledger, Dix strode the dish in the fourth and bunted the first pitch he saw from right-hander Cole Miller (Athletics) foul. After another foul ball, he walloped a fastball that caught too much of the dish to his pull-side for a two-run homer.

But whereas Dix’s previous two-homer performance featured a pair of conventional over-the-wall roundtrippers, things took on a new tact Friday. Dix ripped another high flyball in the sixth, this one to center field, where the fence gets even deeper. It took a fortuitous bounce past the center fielder, and before Stockton could corral the ball, Dix was almost already all the way back home for the first inside-the-park home run of his life.

At what point did he know he was going for it?

“As soon as I hit second base,” Dix said. “I didn't even pick up my third-base coach. I was like, ‘We're gonna send it, we're gonna go forward with this and see what happens.' I hit it well, I honestly thought it was going out. I hit good backspin on the ball, so I was like, ‘This could leave the park easily.’ We even had wind blowing out, but I guess not.

“I guess I need to do some more pushups,” he quipped.

It’s been a banner week for Dix, who on the back of his career-high-tying four-hit, four-RBI performance, is 9-for-17 this week with four extra-base hits. He’s also drawn five walks, been hit by a pitch and swiped five bags in that span. The 35th overall pick from the 2024 Draft has raised his average 59 points since Sunday and looked much more like the hitter who demolished Arizona Complex League pitching (.342 AVG, 142 wRC+) last summer en route to being ranked as MLB's No. 7 second-base prospect.

“I wasn't in a great spot with my swing,” Dix said of his early-season lumps. “I thought I was a little long, loopy, everything. I talked to my hitting coaches, worked with them, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't and I felt really good some days, some days not. But I just trusted the process. That's the great thing about Minor League Baseball, that we get to develop and see what works, see what doesn't work.”

Another major advantage for young players is the time during spring camp where they get to be up-close with big leaguers. Dix appeared as a late-game replacement during seven Cactus League contests for the D-backs, and while he didn’t collect a hit, the way he carried himself and played the game made an impact.

Despite the homers that have come in spurts for the 20-year-old over the past month, it’s not necessarily the name of his game. He got a firsthand reminder back in Scottsdale during time around the batting cage with eight-time All-Star Nolan Arenado.

“He simply put it, ‘Hit the ball hard,’” Dix said of his talk with the D-backs’ third baseman. “I think sometimes we get into a notion of, ‘See the curveball pop out of his hand, see the fastball down, get on top of the ball.’ I think we get into a very systematic [mindset].

“I play hard. I play as hard as I can every day and it’s kind of worked for me. I’m kind of simplifying it as much as possible, going out here and just being on the attack, never playing defensively. This game is supposed to be just attacking – pitchers attack hitters, hitters attack pitchers and that's how it goes.”